Close-up of a fine line script tattoo reading "this too shall pass" in black ink across the upper chest near the collarbone.

Handwritten "this too shall pass" on the collarbone

Fine line · Chest · Black and grey · Photo

The tattoo is a line of cursive lettering reading "this too shall pass" in black ink, running horizontally across the upper chest beside the collarbone. The linework is thin and even, with the strokes varying slightly in weight to suggest handwriting. The image is a warm-toned close crop of bare skin with a white top at the lower edge and a dark background at the top right.

Fine line Lettering Chest Quote Script Handwriting Collarbone

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tomas, the kettle has boiled dry twice since Tuesday and I have stopped minding. Mrs Okafor from number nine brought round a tin of shortbread that tasted of the tin, and I ate four of them standing at the sink while the rain came sideways off the estuary. The surveyor has been. He wrote everything down in a green notebook and said the wall was sound, which I did not believe, because he kept looking at the wrong wall.

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I found your old cigarette case behind the bread bin. Inside was the card from the jeweller in Harrow, the one with the ring you never bought her. You said Father would have hated it, and you were right, he would have hated it, but he hated most things that made you happy so I am not sure that counts. I have put the card in my purse. I don't know why. Perhaps so I can take it out on the bus and be cross with it.

Then last night I went up to the loft for the Christmas box and found Mother's commonplace book. On the inside cover, in her slanting pencil, she had copied a line from some old king: this too shall pass. Underneath she had added in ink, Ellen, you will need this in March. She was right. I sat on the boxes and laughed until I couldn't breathe, and then I cried, and the bulb swung on its flex the way it does when the wind finds the gap under the hatch.

So I am writing to say the damp will be seen to, the cough is better, and the wall is only a wall. Come home when the boat docks. Bring the good tea, not the dust. Your loving sister, Ellen. P.S. I have copied the line out for you in my best hand, so you can keep it in your coat pocket.